


Solstice/Equinox

by tristesses



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pain of losing her is almost as fierce as the glory of having her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solstice/Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 10/21/2008.

Tonight is summer on an unknown planet, the kind with a name unpronounceable for human mouths; the humidity level hovers somewhere around fifty percent, the heat much higher than any Rose has experienced in good old Britain. Tonight is summer. The air is hot and sticky, and the Doctor has shrugged off his jacket for once, leaving it in the field of off-white grass and tender green flowers. Later he will be sorry he broke the slender shoots but for now, there is only one flower he cares to look at.

Rose. The heat suits her; everything suits her, really, but today is different. Today her cheeks bloom with a berry flush of heat, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, her shirt tucked up under itself in a valiant effort to fight the warmth, but only succeeding in baring her skin to him, delicate and fine. He loves the fact he is the only one with the privilege of looking at the fleshy curve of her hip and her skin skimming the bones of her ribcage; the only one with permission to kiss the crease where her leg joins her torso and drag his lips across her jaw line – claiming her with kisses and nips. Have any of his other regenerations been this possessive? He doesn’t know; perhaps he hadn’t found anything to protect this fiercely before now.

She flops down beside him in the grass, reclining on his jacket; the dual moons hover in this planet’s sky, echoed in her eyes. Absently, the Doctor wonders when he got this sentimental. It’s a little absurd, really – but then she’s a little absurd too, a London shop girl with a smart mouth and a quirky laugh that makes her catch her tongue between her teeth; that’s how he knows she’s really smiling. Like now, looking at him looking at her. He was too lost in his recollections to notice, at first; but then, he’s always found her a little transfixing.

Tonight is summer, and it’s too hot to be so close, but that doesn’t matter. Her mouth is wet and warm, little body taut in his arms – so human, so _fragile_ – she pushes him to the ground and clambers above him, tossing her hair, silhouetted by the glowing of the moons. Every word has an image, every image has a taste – the word is summer, the taste, image, scent, is Rose.

 **. . .**

He still comes to the beach, always when his current companion is sleeping; it’s such a quick visit he can manage it during her eight-hour cycle. He always lands in winter, when the snow is just beginning to dust the shores, barely paler than the sand; his trainers crunch the snow and sand until he reaches the water line and lets the waves lap at his feet. It’s freezing, painfully so, but he can take it. Some would call him a martyr, but he doesn’t see it like that; the icy ache reminds him he’s still here, that she’s gone, that he must carry on. It is always ice he flees to, cold planets, cold snow.

The snow in his hair doesn’t melt; his body temperature isn’t warm enough. Same goes for the flakes on his suit, stark white against the blue. Oh, it’s so _cold_ , his hands in the water, pressing his prints into the muck only to watch them wash away again. His fingers are going numb, but it’s all right; the cold is pure. Cold is cleansing. He needs cleansing.

He wonders if the Void is cold as well, the absolute zero cold of outer space, or worse than that, even more punishing. Is it like Dante’s hell, with Lucifer frozen in a block of ice in the ninth circle? Lucifer, unable to breath, blink, cry, plead for mercy or forgiveness, or curse the God who put him there – the rebellious creature who caused his world to burn. Then saw it freeze. Does Lucifer repent with deadened lips, there in the heart of his frozen castle?

The Doctor is called the Oncoming Storm, a freezing raging wind. The Daleks are not ones for poetry, but they grasp the concept: he will – would, did – blister them until they shrink and break, brittle in their metal towers. Oh, he is cold, in more ways than one.

A cold snap kills flowers. The Doctor can attest to that.


End file.
